Perhaps I might offer some thoughts regarding the idea that UP should offer more steam excursions. Where I live on their main line, there are about 150 trains passing through here every day. I can only imagine that squeezing in a steam excursion at any time in the midst of this traffic would be a nightmare. Also, I've seen all regular traffic halted in both directions when 844 or 3985 stops here, simply as a very wise safety move. Throngs of people always gather to see the locomotive and it's very easy for us to be completely oblivious to whatever would be coming down the line on the adjacent tracks over which we all mill around to see and photograph the mighty engine from all angles, and hopefully get near enough to the crew to visit briefly with them. The disaster to human life that could result with any regular trains coming down those humanity-covered tracks would be monumental.

We should be grateful to UP and to the dedicated Steam Crew for what they do provide in the midst of these and countless other factors that could easily serve as justifications to abandon the steam operations altogether.